GIS 4048 Final Project: Conservation Subdivision Parcel Selection

A group of developers requested assistance with locating vacant parcels in Orange County, Florida, that are suitable for the development of a conservation subdivision. Conservation subdivisions reserve about 50-70% of the buildable land for open space and group the homes on the remaining portion. Conservation subdivisions have higher home values and reduced infrastructure costs (including lower stormwater management needs), benefit wildlife, and provide open space to residents (Allen, et al., 2013). It is a win-win situation. The objectives of the project were to obtain a list of suitable parcels, calculate Euclidean distances based on clients' preferences (near major roads and conservation lands, away from airports, energy plants, and landfills), perform an intersection to remove parcels that could not be used for subdivision development, conduct weighted analyses, determine three vacant parcels that meet the criteria, and provide the results (maps, spreadsheet, and report of parcel information with owner contact information) to the clients.

Such an extensive task seemed quite daunting at first. Deciding what to take on as a project alone was time-consuming. This was a good, practical experience as I learned that finding necessary, accurate, and complete data can be quite difficult at times. Having polygons for the parcels instead of a single point for each parcel would have been more informative for the clients. Along the way there were several accidental discoveries about ArcMap's quirks which I hope to avoid with future projects. Although it was extremely time-consuming, I really enjoyed working on this project. I haven’t done any subdivision work for decades and was excited to discover the concept of conservation subdivisions. A PowerPoint presentation describing the project is available here: Conservation Subdivision Parcel Selection

Examples of Output Generated for Clients

Resources:

Allen, S., Moore, S., Moorman, L., Moorman, C., Peterson, N., & Hess, G. (n.d.).  Conservation Subdivision Handbook (North Carolina Forest Service and North Carolina State University Publication No. AG-742). Retrieved from http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/forestry/pdf/ag/ag742.pdf.

Allen, S., Moorman, C., Peterson, M.N., Hess, G., & Moore, S. (2013). Predicting success incorporating conservation subdivisions into land use planning. Land Use Policy, 33, 31–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.12.001. (Article in its entirety is available at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~mnpeters/documents/Allen_etal_2013_LUP_000.pdf .)